{"id":560,"date":"2001-08-05T18:18:47","date_gmt":"2001-08-05T18:18:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/?p=560"},"modified":"2020-12-03T07:07:35","modified_gmt":"2020-12-03T07:07:35","slug":"fresh-bread-every-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/fresh-bread-every-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Fresh Bread Every Day"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Luke 12:13-21<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

August 5, 2001<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church of San Francisco.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the fastest growing and profitable businesses today is the storage business. Investors can\u2019t build these mini-storage units fast enough. When we moved to San Francisco, we rented two storage crates at Public Storage for a year. And when the church needed a place to store its furniture during the retrofit, we rented a garage from Crocker\u2019s Lockers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These storage units provide safe, some with temperature controlled environments in which to store our stuff for which we have no room at home; usually after we have filled our closets, garages, attics, and crawl spaces. Americans are building bigger barns, and they frequently look like self-storage units!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today\u2019s Scripture tells first about two brothers who wanted Jesus to arbitrate their family inheritance. Jesus sensing that the request is coming from his interests of greed tells a parable about a rich farmer. The farmer talks to himself\u2014not with others or with God in prayer, but with himself. And from the parable, the farmer\u2019s possessions are not evil, nor does the parable say that he unjustly accumulated them. He just had a lot of stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So the rich farmer asks himself, \u201cWhat should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?\u201d He says, \u201cI will pull down my barns and build larger ones to store my grain and my goods.\u201d Now if the rich farmer were in the Bay Area with real estate being so high and construction so costly, he probably would have rented self-storage units!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem here is that in this brief parable, the rich farmer faced with increasing fortunes and possessions has developed a barn-building syndrome and has forgotten to depend on God. He believed that he earned his possessions and therefore can look forward to years of relaxation, eating, drinking, and being merry. It\u2019s all his doing he thought: \u201cI, I, my, I, I, my, I, my, my, I, my.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesus countered, \u201cYou fool! Guard against greed. Life doesn\u2019t consist in the abundance of possessions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The trouble with possessions is that, if we aren\u2019t careful, our possessions can possess us. The \u201cI, me, and mine\u201d thinking is a very popular. That\u2019s why we build bigger houses, three-car garages, tools sheds and storage units\u2014to store stuff. We own so much stuff that you can hire a consultant to come into your house to organize your closets! We begin to believe that the more things we have the more capable we are to become self-sufficient.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Give Us Today Our Daily Bread<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

Materialism can easily become a religion for us like the rich farmer thinking to himself  that he alone, all by himself, has earned the privilege to take it easy because he has much grain and goods. This is so different from the prayer that Jesus taught us to ask God for, \u201cGive us today our daily bread.\u201d Jesus didn\u2019t teach us to become rich, famous, and self-sufficient. He taught us to ask God for fresh bread every day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The act of asking for bread is for us a daily reminder that our lives, like our bread, are gifts from God. Daily we are dependent upon God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes we have given the impression that Christianity is filled with noble ideas and religious truths. We foster a reality that puts off people with our special words and codes that are too hard for others to decipher. Christianity can become a faith for those who are better educated and perhaps more able\u2014like the rich farmer with self-storage units filled with grain and goods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But when Jesus taught us to ask God for our daily bread, we see that Christianity is as nitty gritty as it gets. We are talking only about bread here. Our lives are so fragile and dependent of God that God gives us what we need, even something so mundane and common, but truly essential, as bread.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, we are talking about bread and wine and water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meeting God<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

God is transforming all of our lives, even the most earthly and ordinary of our lives, into signs of divine presence. The place we meet God is when a group of former strangers are eating together around a table called the Lord\u2019s Supper. Or we lead you to a running river or into the baptistry where folks are descending into the waters, dying to their old selves, rising as new creations, called baptism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The table, the loaf of bread, the bath all become expressions of the way our Lord has intruded upon the world, claiming it as his own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Remember on that first Easter morning, two despondent disciples were walking together toward the little village of Emmaus? A stranger joins them on the road, asking them why they look so depressed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u201cAre you the only person in Jerusalem who hasn\u2019t heard the things that have taken<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            place this weekend?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They told this stranger about the death of Jesus, which had occurred three days before. Then,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            as they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            were going on. But they urged him strongly, saying, \u201cStay with us, because it is<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 almost evening and the day is now nearly over.\u201d So he went in to stay with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him.\u201d (Luke 24:28<\/a>–<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            31).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we want to meet God, we Christians don\u2019t go up some high mountain. We do not rummage around in our psyches. We do not hold hands, close our eyes, and sing \u201cKum ba yah\u201d in the hope of revelation. We do not use convoluted words or look into our self-storage units.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you know what we do? We gather and break bread in Jesus\u2019 name. That\u2019s where he has chosen to meet us. That\u2019s where our eyes are opened and we recognize him. We pray \u201cgive us this day our daily bread,\u201d not just as a survival strategy. No matter how much bread we eat, we eventually will still get hungry. We still find ourselves seeking for meaning in life. In praying for daily bread we are praying for the daily presence of God among us. When we take time to pray everyday, we invite God to be a part of our lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daily Bread<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

In the Lord\u2019s Prayer, we pray only for daily bread. A more accurate translation of this word, \u201cdaily\u201d might be \u201csufficient or enough.\u201d To pray for more would tempt us to try to live as if we were self-sufficient, not in constant need of a gracious God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When manna was given in the wilderness, the Hebrews were permitted to gather only as much as they needed for each day (Ex. 16:16<\/a>). When they tried to hoard and gather more, the manna rotted. Daily we must reach out to God who daily reaches out to us. Daily we wake up to the realization that, if we live, it\u2019s only because of the daily gifts of God. We need fresh bread every day. We don\u2019t want \u201cday-old\u201d bread!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last week, about 50 of us went on a camping trip at Pt. Reyes National Seashores. What we will remember the most as we did last year is the great and abundance of food we had. I enjoyed it too. Most of us don\u2019t think much about daily bread because for most of us, bread is not a problem. If I tried to fill up with prime rib so that I wouldn\u2019t have to eat tomorrow, I would still get up in the morning and feel hungry. Most of us perish from too much bread rather than too little, filling ourselves with ceaseless consumption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are rich and, as Jesus\u2019 parable tells us, rich people are in big trouble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Take for an example, a typical woman in a little village in Honduras would trudge up to the mountain each day to gather and then carry down the mountain the sticks for her cooking fire. She then goes back up the mountain to fetch water for cooking the food. Then she grinds the corn her husband has raised, cherishing every kernel, hoping that this season\u2019s corn will last through the winter. The tortillas are made in the palm of her hand. She drops them in the pan, cooks them and feeds them one-by-one to her children, the only food they will have that day to fill their aching stomachs. That woman undoubtedly prays, \u201cgive us this day our daily bread\u201d differently from the way we pray that prayer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In our culture of over-consumption, people in our situation ought to pray for the grace to be able to say, \u201cgive us the grace to know when enough is enough\u201d or help us to say \u201cno\u201d when the world entices us with so much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In praying the Lord\u2019s Prayer, perhaps we will learn to \u201cget back to basics,\u201d perhaps we will learn in desiring what we really need rather than that which we desire. Perhaps one day we will be able to say with Paul,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and being in<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.\u201d (Phil. 4:11b-13)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Breaking Bread Together<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

Have you ever noticed that when we eat bread, it is a communal experience. We made \u201cyew jai gwai\u201d with jook last weekend. I didn\u2019t just fried enough for myself, we fried enough for all of us. When you buy a loaf of bread, it usually comes sliced into many pieces for you to make many sandwiches for others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We pray, \u201cOur Father\u2026give us <\/strong>this day our<\/strong> daily bread.\u201d We are not praying for my bread; it\u2019s our bread. Bread is a communal product. No bread is eaten alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The farmers in Iowa gather the grains. The bakers in South SF make sourdough bread. The delivery truck driver puts it on the supermarket shelf. We bring it home to share with our family. Bread is a communal experience. None of us eats or lives alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This means that as bread is a communal experience, we also have responsibility for each other. St. Basil the Great made explicit in a sermon that nothing which belongs to us is ours alone, particularly that which we have in excess of \u201cour daily bread.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bread that is spoiling in your bread box belongs to the hungry. The shoes that are mildewing under your bed belong to those who have none. The clothes stored away in your trunk belong to those who are naked. The stuff crammed into your self-storage units is bulging out to furnish those who have none. And maybe the $300 or $600 tax rebates that you and I are getting should be donated to a charitable and worthy cause.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our bread is not ours to hoard. Our bread belongs to our sisters and brothers. Bread is a gift from God that we neither earned or deserved. It\u2019s not our own bread but bread for Christians is a gift from God. It\u2019s grace. And because God has placed upon us the gift of bread, we have a responsibility for our neighbor\u2019s needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Getting ready for a camping trip in tents takes a lot of work. For just the two of us, we filled our trunk and the back seat with gear and food. Upon arriving at the campsite, we started to put up our tents. Some of us read directions while others just jumped in and started to set up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As each tent was put up, we ask the question of why as modern people with warm homes, running water, clean bathrooms, and the convenience of take-out restaurants, are we setting up our tents on a dusty and dry campsite? What was behind this annual madness?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When a whole row of tents were put up, we went around checking out each other\u2019s weekend homes. We noticed different construction, unique features, different colors. There were big ones and little ones. We came to realize that one of the reasons why we go camping once a year is to re-create if only for a weekend, our version of a Chinese village. While we live as far as 60 or 70 miles from each other, we are now living so close to each other that we are woken up by each other\u2019s snoring! We helped each other set up and take down our tents. We cooked and cleaned up for each other. We shared stories, sang songs, gave thanks to God for our church family, and prayed for each other. And at the end, we realized that we have responsibility to raise each other\u2019s children and to make sure that everyone has bread.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesus taught us to pray daily for bread and be on guard against our greed to want more or to rent more self-storage units to store our possessions or to think that we made it all on our own so that we can now take it easy and relax, eat, drink, and be merry. For Jesus is the Bread of Life, the greatest gift from God. And when we believe in him, God wants us to make sure that we share our bread with others and to take responsibility for his world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDo not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.\u201d (Mt. 6:19-21<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let us pray for \u201cfresh bread every day\u201d because when we depend on God with our lives, God\u2019s grace will transform us to be his own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let us pray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gracious Lord, we pray for the understanding that our lives depend on you everyday. Help us to celebrate your constant and loving providence so that when we receive fresh bread daily, we know that you are our God and we are your people. Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Luke 12:13-21 August 5, 2001 Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church of San Francisco. One of the fastest growing and profitable businesses today isContinue readingFresh Bread Every Day<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[11,18],"class_list":["post-560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-donald-ng-sermons","tag-fcbc","tag-luke"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=560"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2539,"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560\/revisions\/2539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}